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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342860">A Suitable Task</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALaterDate/pseuds/ALaterDate'>ALaterDate</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, slightly shippy if you fancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:49:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>967</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28342860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALaterDate/pseuds/ALaterDate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke is shown one reason why Qunari steel is so valuable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Arishok &amp; Male Hawke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Suitable Task</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/gifts">QuickSilverFox3</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A Yuletide treat for a discord server member who asked for "something about Qunari culture and customs! Particularly something about Hawke/ or &amp; The Arishok." Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Arishok had asked for Hawke again. This time by a plain letter delivered to his home. In brief words it said they had a simple matter to discuss, that his presence wasn’t urgent, but expected. Somehow he had become Kirkwall’s ambassador to the Qunari compound. He went immediately.</p><p>In his immediacy he showed up alone and the guards outside directed him to a previously unvisited part of the compound at once. A spacious square of land with three walls and a high ceiling all made of fabric.</p><p>Water stained trunks and once soggy crates occupied the far wall. Most likely whatever provisions the Qunari were able to salvage from their ship wreck. A lacquered table in the middle of the area stood out as the only fancy object there. Even the two chairs set beside it were nothing more that repurposed wood draped in sheets.</p><p>“Take a seat.” The rough voice of the Arishok reverberated from behind him.</p><p>For a man so big he was oddly quiet. Hawke took the seat closest to him and the Arishok moved to occupy the other. Two men followed, loudly, and pulled a trunk from the pile to place it at the Arishok’s feet before leaving.</p><p>“You have something to discuss with me?” Hawke asked.</p><p>The Arishok grunted in assent. “A task that seems suitable to your skills.”</p><p>“So, you’re asking me for a favor?”</p><p>“I have not once asked anything of you. I have merely stated facts about this miserable place that passes for a city and you took it upon yourself to act.”</p><p>“Right.” Hawke failed to stifle his laugh and a puff of air escaped him, but it also escaped the notice of the Arishok.</p><p>He was too busy setting up a variety of items across the lacquered table between them. Bowls, and pestles, and containers from which he shook out a small pile of red dust into one of the bowls.</p><p>A rush of wind bit through the semi-open space they occupied. The white canvass fabric hung above them serving as shelter from direct sunlight rippled under the wind rolling across its surface. The Arishok wasn’t bothered at all by the pigment escaping the piles he had poured out and taking flight around him.</p><p>It reminded Hawke of the alley shops with their canvassed stands and the scent of spices and dried fruit that roamed freely on the winds there. He wondered if the Arishok had ever been there, or at least his scouts, and if the sheets of fabric around them had been bought in Kirkwall or brought from Par Vollen. The bowls sitting on the chestnut table in front of him were definitely not from Kirkwall or anywhere in the Free Marches for that matter.</p><p>They were thin and shallow metal bowls made in a single piece, or connected well enough to conceal any seam. But the most remarkable thing about them were the patterns adorning them. Rippling lines and concentric circles reminiscent of the natural striations and patterns found in marble. Not an etched carving, but somehow a trait of the steel itself.</p><p>“Qunandar steel,” The Arishok told him. “The efficiency of the Qun is one that allows us to advance beyond the reaches of basra. Enough that even our trinkets are made of the strongest steel.”</p><p>The Arishok did not wait for Hawke to comment before busying himself with grinding the dust into the bowl with the pestle. It easily turned into an even finer powder under his strength. The bowls would have to be strong to take that kind of punishment often. When he was satisfied with his work he scooped some lard from a container previously set out and dropped it into the bowl, thoroughly mixing it with the red silt.</p><p>“I have changed the composition for this demonstration. Real Vitaar would kill you.” He gestured for Hawke to put out his arm.</p><p>“I very much do not feel like being poisoned today, sorry.”</p><p>“If I called you here to kill you, you would not have passed through the gates.”</p><p>Well that was true, but not in the manner the Arishok meant it. But curiosity won out. How many people outside of the Qun had ever even seen Vitaar being prepared let alone had the Arishok want to apply a non-lethal version of it on them. He stretched his forearm across the table.</p><p>With one sturdy hand The Arishok gripped Hakwe’s wrist while his other hand dipped into the bowl. When Hawke tensed under the tight grip it suddenly it loosened.</p><p>The Arishok said nothing as he used his coated thumb and fingers to draw criss-crossing lines of varying thickness across Hawke’s skin. The mixture was cool to the touch, like metal itself. It sent a flush of goosebumps across his arm.</p><p>But the Arishok’s strong fingers warmed and indented the skin they passed over so that the tingling receded as quickly as it came. Then he let go with a grunt of satisfaction.</p><p>Once the design was finished Hawke’s muscles tightened involuntarily under the work then relaxed all at once. He moved and twisted his arm. It felt like he wore armor or jewelry, but the pigment didn’t crack or flake despite the hardness. It remained completely flexible almost like another layer of skin. He had seen nothing like it before.</p><p>“This inferior mixture will do nothing to strengthen you in battle, but now you understand what little you can of the properties of Vitaar. These bowls are not only made of the strongest steel. They have a property essential to making Vitaar. Basra are unworthy. Any efforts to replicate it would drive them to madness. In effort to prevent this it would be wise that they are returned to where they belong.”</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do.”</p>
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